Product Description

Hervé This (pronounced "Teess") is an internationally renowned chemist, a popular French television personality, a bestselling cookbook author, a longtime collaborator with the famed French chef Pierre Gagnaire, and the only person to hold a doctorate in molecular gastronomy, a cutting-edge field he pioneered. Bringing the instruments and experimental techniques of the laboratory into the kitchen, This uses recent research in the chemistry, physics, and biology of food to challenge traditional ideas about cooking and eating. What he discovers will entertain, instruct, and intrigue cooks, gourmets, and scientists alike.

Molecular Gastronomy, This's first work to appear in English, is filled with practical tips, provocative suggestions, and penetrating insights. This begins by reexamining and debunking a variety of time-honored rules and dictums about cooking and presents new and improved ways of preparing a variety of dishes from quiches and quenelles to steak and hard-boiled eggs. He goes on to discuss the physiology of flavor and explores how the brain perceives tastes, how chewing affects food, and how the tongue reacts to various stimuli. Examining the molecular properties of bread, ham, foie gras, and champagne, the book analyzes what happens as they are baked, cured, cooked, and chilled.

Looking to the future, This imagines new cooking methods and proposes novel dishes. A chocolate mousse without eggs? A flourless chocolate cake baked in the microwave? Molecular Gastronomy explains how to make them. This also shows us how to cook perfect French fries, why a soufflé rises and falls, how long to cool champagne, when to season a steak, the right way to cook pasta, how the shape of a wine glass affects the taste of wine, why chocolate turns white, and how salt modifies tastes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17231 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-09
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 392 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Originally published in France, This's book documents the sensory phenomena of eating and uses basic physics to put to bed many culinary myths. In each short chapter This presents a piece of debatable conventional wisdom-such as whether it is better to make a stock by placing meat in already boiling water, or water before it is boiled-and gives its history, often quoting famous French chefs, before making scientific pronouncements. In the chapter on al dente pasta, for instance, This discusses pasta-making experiments, the science behind cooking it and whether it is better to use oil or butter to prevent it from sticking. Most of the discussions revolve around common practices and phenomenon-chilling wine, why spices are spicy, how to best cool a hot drink-but more than a few are either irrelevant or Franco-specific (such as the chapters on quenelles and preparing fondue). This's experimentation, however, is not for the mildly curious, but readers unafraid to, say, microwave mayonnaise will find many ideas here.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Scientific American
A well-known chemist, a popular French television personality, a best-selling cookbook author, the first person to hold a doctorate in molecular gastronomy, and, coincidentally, a former editor at Pour la Science, the French edition of Scientific American. All these appellation come together in Hervé This, a scholar-gastronome who now has his first book available in English. One of the founders of molecular gastronomy, which brings the instruments and experimental techniques of the lab into the kitchen, the author blends practical tips and provocative suggestions with serious discussions—about how the brain perceives tastes, for example, and how chewing affects food.

Editors of Scientific American

Review

"Taking kitchen science to a whole new (molecular) level, Hervé This is changing the way France -- and the world -- cooks." -- Gourmet

"This has written an interesting and timely combination of our everyday experience with sophisticated science." -- Claudia Kousoulas, Appetite for Books

"Mr. This's book will broaden the way you think about food." -- New York Sun

"It is a wonderful book... it will appeal to anyone with an interest in the science of cooking." -- O Chef

"This's book is for anyone who likes to eat or cook... Highly Recommended." -- Choice

"This offers some though-provoking opportunities for play in the kitchen." -- Pagosa Springs Sun

"This book, praiseworthy for its scientific rigor, will hold a special appeal for anyone who relishes the debunking of culinary myths." -- Todd Coleman, Saveur

"A fresh approach... That will entertain and enlighten anyone interested in the process of cooking and the enjoyment of food." -- Raymond J. Shively, Jr., The Bloomsbury Review

"Anyone with an inordinate passion for cooking would love this book." -- Mia Stainsby, Vancouver Sun

"A timely addition... Suitable for both scientists and the lay public." -- Thorvald Pedersen, EMBO Reports

"This book is laden with science while rendering a clear approach to flavor." -- Academia

"[A] captivating little book." -- The Economist

Customer Reviews

interesting, sometimes dry or explanations unclear
As a biochemist, I enjoyed reading this book. The connection of science and cooking is very interesting. Sometimes, the information is presented too dryly. The science behind the book is usually presented clearly, but I did find a couple of minor scientific errors. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting a scientific explanation of cooking or how science could be used to experiment with cooking.

For the scientist-cook
After reading the Italian translation a coupe of years ago, I was so much hoping for an English translation, and here it is; and it's brilliant! It's quite one thing to follow recipes and follow instructions, and quite another to understand at a physico-chemical level WHY you need to do things in a certain way. As a scientisty person- really, just as a curious person- you want to know what's happening to the meat that makes it tender and flavorful, or the cake just that right consistency.

I guess the philosophy that best suits me is to understand the science so well that the art is set free to explore. If you understand WHY, you can also figure out HOW to change it. And more importantly for someone like me, you also know WHAT to do when you make mistakes ;)

What makes the book particularly worth the $$ is the extent of the science- right down to the molecular basis of taste.

If I had a complaint, it would be that the articles are WAY too short. This book seems like the summary of what would be the Vedas of food science.

Cooking related...but not a book of advanced recipes or cooking techniques
An interesting pseudo-culinary book.

I must begin by stating that I love to cook and any book, video, program etc. that involves cooking tweaks my interest; and so I approached this book by Herve This (pronounced 'Teess') with great anticipation.

This translated book (and I felt that there may have been a little something lost in the translation) has 101 chapters on various culinary topics; each chapter being no more that 2 - 2 1/2 pages long. Also there is an excellent glossary, index and a list of 'further reading' listed in the back.

I'd been hoping for some advice on French cooking techniques that I could learn and apply to my kitchen skills. And although this book did have some interesting topics and some good suggestions, the advanced cooking tips I'd hoped for turned out to be more generalities than specific instructions.

Rather than discussing how to make a dish, the author goes into great detail as to why certain things happen with certain combinations of ingredients. Initially this sounded exactly what I'd hoped for, but I quickly realized that most of the chapters involved going over cooking experiments and chemical reactions between compounds. In short, this work reminded me more at times of a PhD thesis than an actual cookbook; I felt the finding discussed here would be of more interest to a chemistry major than a chef.

Conclusions:
This is a well written, translated book that ended up an interesting read but not really what I'd being looking for when I decided to purchase this work. I felt that, although the discussions produced in the chapters were relevant to cooking, they were just not really practical for applying to home based culinary usage.

If I'm somewhat disappointed in this book I've no one to blame other than myself; after all, the book jacket clearly states "Exploring the Science of Flavor". Plus, I should have read the other reviews more closely.